Implementing Lean
Growing Solutions, Leading Improvement
Lean is a set of principles.
Any organization can seek to maximize customer value through eliminating waste, with respect for people.
Lean is a way of thinking
that focuses on optimizing the flow of work from a customer's perspective, rather than optimizing siloed departments.
Lean is a collection of tools
that apply these principles and thinking to the challenge of identifying and removing problems and waste.
Lean for knowledge work and service work
We find that people love the principles, thinking, and tools of Lean. This is because…
- Lean is a system that addresses all levels of an organization.
- Lean has been developed and refined over a long period of time.
- Lean gives the organization a framework for adapting to change and improving performance.
- Lean opens up space for people to creatively remove problems where and when they occur.
- Lean helps establish a workplace where everyone directly contributes to the value that is created for customers. It is not about eliminating jobs or people.
- Lean is focused on continuous improvement. When improvement becomes a routine part of the work, it doesn't need to be comprehensive, expensive, or risky.
- Lean is pragmatic.
Respect for people
At Koné Consulting, "respect for people" is the most important aspect of Lean. It's also the first aspect to go out the window in many botched attempts at Lean, or projects where people have Lean inflicted on them.
For us, respect for people means…
- Developing the skills and talents of individual people in an organization.
- Helping people identify the resources and authority they already have, and utilize these to seek ways to better serve customers.
- Developing environments of mutual trust and shared understanding.
- Changing the culture of organizations from fixation on "results" and "accountability" to focus on building quality into the work and orientation around an organization's purpose.
What we do
Learn about our facilitation, training, and cultural change tactics here
Learn more about A3 8-step problem solving and Value Stream improvement here
Recent projects
Business Process Improvement - Community Colleges of Spokane, 2020-2022
Lean Process Improvement - Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), 2019–2020
Job and Family Services Value Stream Improvement - Cuyahoga County, Ohio (as part of WSS 2.0) - Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), 2018
Lean Consulting Services - Beaverton, OR, 2015-2018
Lean Transformation Project - County of San Mateo, CA, 2015-2017